Kaj Arnö

Kaj Arnö
Kaj Arnö at FOSDEM 2019 in Brussels
Born	Kaj Sigurd Ademar Arnö 1963 (age 61–62) Helsinki, Finland
Nationality	Finland, Germany
Employer	MariaDB Foundation
Known for	MySQL, MariaDB

Kaj Sigurd Ademar Arnö (born 29 June 1963 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finland-Swedish IT-entrepreneur and columnist.[1] He is since 2016 (also) a German citizen and has lived in Germany since 2006.[2] He is the former Vice President of the MySQL Community at MySQL AB, Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation, founder of MariaDB Corporation Ab and the current CEO of the MariaDB Foundation.[3]

Biography

Education

Arnö went to the Swedish co-educational school Nya svenska samskolan.[4] He studied physics at the Helsinki University of Technology.[4]

MySQL & MariaDB

Prior to joining MySQL AB, Arnö was the main owner of Polycon Ab where he served as CEO from 1987 to 2001.[4][5]

Arnö joined MySQL AB as VP of Training in May 2001 and subsequently served in roles as VP Consulting, VP Services, VP Engineering and VP Community Relations till February 2008, when Sun bought MySQL AB. Arnö was the main spokesperson towards the MySQL community from 2005 onwards, as well as a frequent speaker at MySQL events.[6] He served as VP of the MySQL Community in the Database Group at Sun Microsystems until June 2010, when the German subsidiary of Sun was integrated into Oracle.[7] In October 2010, he announced his retirement from Oracle.[5]

In 2010, Arnö was co-founder together with Michael "Monty" Widenius and others of SkySQL, a company that sold support and consultancy for MySQL and MariaDB, which later became MariaDB Corporation Ab.[8][9][10]

Since 2019, Arnö has been the CEO of MariaDB Foundation.[3]

Columnist

Arnö has been a regular columnist in Swedish for Forum för ekonomi och teknik (2008-2021),[11] Svenska Yle's culture pages (2015-2021)[12][13] and Åbo Underrättelser since 2021.[14]

Other work

Arnö has condensed his philosophy of running into what he calls "Runnism, the Religion of Running".[15]

References

1. Nordgren, Richard. "Kaj Arnö: Det svenska i Finland syns dåligt på Wikipedia". www.hbl.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
2. "Kaj Arnö: Jag är en stolt tysk". svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
3. Arnö, Kaj (2019-01-30). "A Word from the Incoming CEO". MariaDB.org. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
4. "IT-företagaren Kaj Arnö: Hårt arbete och kloka beslut eller bondtur att vi lyckades sälja IT-firman för en miljard dollar?". svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
5. Arnö, Kaj. "Thank you, everyone behind MySQL AB!". blogs.arno.fi. Archived from the original on 2010-10-12. Retrieved 2010-10-12.
6. "Planet MySQL". planet.mysql.com.
7. Clarke, Gavin (7 October 2010). "MySQL veteran drifts clear of Oracle Borg". The Register.
8. Weckström/HBL-arkiv, Leif. "Michael "Monty" Widenius redo för börsnotering i USA". www.hbl.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
9. "Pörssilistautumiset | Suomalainen tietokantayhtiö MariaDB listautuu New Yorkin pörssiin spac-kaupan kautta". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). 2022-02-01. Retrieved 2022-10-24.
10. "OpenOcean - How MariaDB became the world-leading open-source database company". openocean.vc. Retrieved 2022-10-24.
11. Arnö, Kaj. "Kaj Arnö kolumner". Forum. ISSN 0533-070X. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
12. "Kaj Arnö: Snapsvisan ger nörden råg i ryggen". svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
13. "Kaj Arnö - nyaste innehållet – svenska.yle.fi". svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
14. "Kaj Arnö Archives | Åbo Underrättelser". abounderrattelser.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-24.
15. "Runnism".

External links

Media related to Kaj Arnö at Wikimedia Commons

• Kaj Arnö in Åbo Underrättelser (Finland's oldest newspaper)
• Kaj Arnö in Svenska Yle (Swedish public broadcasting in Finland)
• Kaj Arnö in Forum för ekonomi och teknik (business magazine)
• kajarno.fi, Kaj Arnö's home page
• mariadb.org, MariaDB Foundation's home page